Our Music Nook

 Well in the race for which room got finished first in our house - The Music Nook is the winner!
(Though actually I have to confess that there is still an outlet cover missing here - it didn't come with our order but it is behind furniture so I decided to let it pass for now. Hopefully we can get it pretty soon.)

 This is a well used and loved place in our house. Every school morning the kids and I gather around the piano to sing (and usually other instruments get played as well) I also teach around 20 students in this area each week and then we each enjoy spending time practicing our instruments too.

   Jonathan and I made the music rack (with 3 boards that I bought for 50 cents each!) and we have enjoyed having it so much. Not only does it display our instruments nicely - and we love the look of instruments- but it also makes the instruments so much handier for playing. That generally causes us to practice more which is a good thing!

  To make the rack we have one solid board across the back. Then we took another board just like it and measured and cut out places for the instruments to slip into. Then we cut some pieces from a 3rd board to be nailed on either side to make the rack sturdy. I then stained it with some stain we had on hand and then varnished it. The next step was to put a strip of foam (something I had saved from a padded box) into each cut out place to make the instruments fit in more snugly.Ken then helped me mount it on the wall.

 Our piano was my grandmother's. She gave it to my parents but they already had a piano and so they gave it to me as the one that I had was pretty old and kind of needed replacing. It is a good piano and we give it a lot of use. I am so glad that I have never had to live without a piano. I love to be able to play whenever I feel like it. It has been a great way to relieve stress for me - something I have done since I was a young teen. We love using it to praise our wonderful God!

  Down in the corner by the piano is my accordion. That is an instrument that I really enjoyed playing when I was a teen but the instrument that I learned on was loaned to us so as an adult I have not had one to play. A while back we were hosting a garage sale and another family from our church was getting ready to move so they brought stuff as well. They told me that if there was ever anything I wanted to just help myself. One day I was out and they had dropped a load of stuff off in front of the garage for the garage sale. When I came home my eyes were immediately drawn to the accordion sitting there. I was so excited!

  I had looked for an accordion in the past but found them to be rather expensive and not all that common to find. When I tried the accordion out I found that quite a few keys were stuck and so it was like you were playing a bunch of chords at once whenever you played. That was a little disappointing. But my brother-in-law came to visit and was able to fix it. It was so fun to be able to play the accordion again. I still have yet to get good at it again but it is fun to play and something that my family - especially Ken- really enjoys so that is fun.

 Under the instrument rack we also have a little bench that I am able to store music books and various things for my music lessons in. It is very handy to have that there.

 On the piano we have our wind instruments. Mara plays the Ocarina, the boys have harmonicas which they are learning, Mara also plays the penny whistle, Megan has a recorder that she needs to learn and I have an alto recorder that I am quite rusty on.

Aaron plays the Mandolin (which he just got in late January) and the Ukulele. He loves bluegrass music. He has discovered that he can actually pick up about any stringed instrument and get a tune out of it.
  
This shows a music gathering at our house a couple of months ago. Jonathan is my banjo boy (still learning - he just got it in February). I am on the violin, my dad on the mandolin, my brother-in-law Benjamin on the guitar and Mara playing the ocarina.

Concerning our other instruments shown above - I play the cello, the little violin was mine when I first learned. Currently no one plays it but I hope to teach Megan before long. Mara is learning on my big violin. The guitar belongs to Jonathan but he never got the hang of it so it hangs there and guests that don't happen to bring their guitar along will often pick it up even though it isn't the greatest. All the kids play the piano to some degree thought Jonathan wants to forget that he ever learned. Mara has advanced the farthest (which could be expected with her being the oldest) and Megan plays it the most.

 Music is well loved here. We are still trying to talk Ken into learning an instrument but he still maintains that trying to count while doing other things is more multi-tasking than he can handle. :-)

 What sort of music do you like? Do you enjoy making music? What instrument do you play?